Thanks so much to everyone who joined the excellent discussions in our first session. The second one explores the next lecture in John Holloway’s In, Against, and Beyond Capitalism: The San Fransisco Lectures (2016). In this chapter, John discusses “Capital, the Social Cohesion that Strangles Us”.

Once again, please remember we really need people to have read the material before the sessions. Click here for attachment and more

‘Learning from “The Civic Strike to Live with Dignity” in Buenaventura, Colombia’, with Patrick Kane (UK), 4.30 on 25 April at UKZN.

We’re delighted to offer this chance to meet and hear from Patrick Kane. Patrick has been involved in solidarity activism supporting social movements and trade unions in Colombia for over a decade. He is currently completing doctoral studies at the University of Sussex in the UK, and recently spent two years based in southwest Colombia carrying out field research with social movements.

He is also a research associate for a broader collaborative research project into social movement learning and knowledge production in Colombia, Nepal, South Africa and Turkey, funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council.

This exciting event will be a public seminar co-hosted with the Paulo Freire Project* . We’ll kick off with drinks and snacks from 4:30pm at the UKZN’s Centre for Visual Arts gallery on Ridge Road.

* of the Centre for Adult Education, School of Education, University of kwaZulu-Natal (UKZN).

To help with preparations, PLEASE let us know if you’re planning to come along by emailing padkos@churchland.org.za or calling Cindy @ (033) 2644 380.

An extraordinary panel from Ghana, as well as Canada & Scotland, closes out this six-month season of CLP’s “School of Thought”, which has been developed with the Paulo Freire Project at UKZN. This year’s “School of Thought” has been organised around the contribution and legacy of Paulo Freire, whose Pedagogy of the Oppressed was published 50 years ago.

Mary Akuteye, Erica Ofoe, and Kofi Larweh with Jon Langdon (whom we’re thrilled to welcome back!) will present a mutual-meaning making panel on the the Yihi Katsɛmɛ (Brave Women) movement – the latest iteration of the Ada Songor Salt Movement (Ghana). This panel will focus in particular on the use and social-movement-learning dimensions of culturally-rooted creativity (songs, dance/drama, and a tapestry) by the Yihi Katsɛmɛ.

There will be a session after lunch with Eurig Scandrett who will reflect on some connections between popular struggles around the world, popular education, and the resonance and relevance of Paulo Freire. Eurig is an Edinburgh-based movement activist and academic who is currently compiling an important new book on environmental justice struggles.

On Monday, 28 May, Bishop Rubin and his wife, Rose, went to visit with S’fiso Ngcobo’s family. Ngcobo was assassinated on 22 May 2018 in eKukhayeni, in Marianhill outside Durban. He was the chairperson of the local branch of the shack dwellers’ movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo.

It is sad and heartbreaking that we woke up to the news of the assassination of Abahlali branch Leader, Sfiso Ngcobo, of Ekukhanyeni branch near Marianridge Abahlali will issue a statement to share more details.

The armed forces working for the eThekweni Municipality continue to relate to impoverished black people in the city like an army of occupation, especially when poor people are organised outside of the ruling party. Today at 11 am the notoriously violent Anti-Land Invasion Unit demolished Mr Ndumiso Mnguni’s house in our Foreman Road branch. This was a brazenly illegal and criminal act.

Next up in the Paulo Freire-focused “School of Thought” padkos sessions, Graham Philpott and Mark Butler will open a conversation about the theological foundations and connections in Freire’s life and work.

Although it’s not always known or emphasised in discussions of Paulo Freire, the fact is that Christianity was important – both in his own life, as well in the life-world of many of the people he worked with.